Many products exist that can be used to apply scent to fabric, or try to get odors out of fabric or to sanitize a fabric. Examples include Febreeze®, scented sprays, Lysol® and many similar products. Although these products can make fabrics smell better between washings, they do nothing to remove loose debris from the fabric. Vacuums are well known in the art. They are used for cleaning many rigid surfaces, including floors with various coverings, walls, and furniture. One of the well known limitations of most vacuums is that they cannot be used to clean “loose” fabrics, that is fabrics that are not mounted to a surface or sewn into pillows, because the strong suction necessary to pull up debris causes the loose fabric to be pulled into the intake nozzle of the vacuum. This means that loose fabric, including, but not limited to, bedding, curtains, throw rugs and lap rugs cannot be cleaned with a vacuum cleaner. This is particularly true of light weight fabric, such as sheets, sheer curtains and the like. Therefore, these fabrics must either be washed, dry cleaned, or shaken out to remove dirt and other loose debris. Repeated washing can damage some fabrics, dry cleaning is expensive and shaking often does an incomplete job of cleaning the fabric.
Most prior vacuum systems have a non-circulating air stream. The air flow comes in to the intake, flows through the debris container and then exists through an air exhaust that is spatially removed from air intake. Therefore all of the force to lift up debris is generated by suction into the air intake. It is for this reason that loose fabrics get pulled into the intake of the vacuum.
A different type of vacuum system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,725,500 by Allen et al. entitled Air Recirculating Surface Cleaning Device. The vacuum system disclosed in this document re-circulates the air flow in the vacuum, instead of having the air blown out the back of the vacuum. The exhaust air is directed to the surface to be cleaned in a specific manner to loosen debris. The loosened debris are then sucked up by the air intake, which is preferably at an angle to the exhaust. See, for example, FIG. 13 of Allen et al.
The foregoing example of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.